1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to a control apparatus for an internal combustion engine that is designed to control the internal combustion engine, which is equipped with a catalyst that is designed to purify exhaust gas discharged from a plurality of cylinders.
2. Description of Related Art
For example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2012-57492 (JP 2012-57492 A), there is described a control apparatus for an internal combustion engine that is equipped with a three-way catalyst into which exhaust gas of four cylinders flows. This control apparatus performs perturbation control (dither control) for making one of the cylinders of the internal combustion engine a rich-burn cylinder whose air-fuel ratio is richer than a theoretical air-fuel ratio and making each of the other three cylinders a lean-burn cylinder whose air-fuel ratio is leaner than the theoretical air-fuel ratio, as the control of warming up (raising the temperature of) the catalyst. This aims at oxidizing unburnt fuel components and incompletely burnt components in the exhaust gas discharged from the rich-burn cylinder by the oxygen in the exhaust gas discharged from the lean-burn cylinders, and raising the temperature of the three-way catalyst by the heat of oxidation.